A longer read again I'm afraid – but when we are talking about children with special educational needs and disabilities, their families and their futures, I make absolutely no apology for that. Put the kettle on. You may need the big mug.
I've started taking a much deeper look at Special Educational Needs and Disabilities – SEND – provision across Sandwell, and already there are some very serious questions that need answering.
This isn't about having a cheap pop at an individual councillor, teacher, school, parent, council officer or political party.
And it certainly isn't about pretending that the national SEND system isn't under enormous pressure too. It is. Across England, the number of pupils with Education, Health and Care Plans continues to rise substantially. In January 2026 there were around 538,500 pupils with EHCPs in English schools, an increase of 11.6% in a year.
But national pressures don't absolve Sandwell of responsibility for Sandwell's children.
And the more I've looked, the more I think we need a substantial, forensic investigation into whether the borough actually has the school places, specialist facilities, EHCP capacity, transport, respite, activities, health provision and forward planning necessary to cope with what is coming.
Because what is coming isn't a surprise.
The numbers are going up – dramatically
Sandwell Council itself says demand for SEND support is increasing rapidly.
Requests for EHC needs assessments have risen from 415 in 2019 to 993 in 2025.
That's an increase of around 139%.
Not a little statistical wobble.
Not a temporary blip.
A fundamental change in demand.
And Sandwell's July 2026 SEND Sufficiency Strategy says there are currently 4,064 children and young people with an EHCP, with that number forecast to reach 7,750 by 2029 and more than 10,700 by 2031.
Just stop and consider that.
If that forecast proves broadly correct, we're not talking about tweaking the existing system around the edges.
We're talking about needing substantially greater capacity across education, health, social care, transport and family support.
Which brings me to the obvious question:
Are we building that capacity quickly enough?
At the moment, I'm far from convinced.
Sandwell already admits it hasn't got enough specialist places
This isn't me making an allegation.
The council's own July 2026 figures say Sandwell currently has around 1,013 special-school places.
It estimates that it will need 1,163 by September 2027.
And when independent specialist provision is included, overall specialist placement demand is expected to reach around 1,440 by 2027.
Now, before somebody reaches for their calculator and announces a straightforward 427-place shortage, it isn't quite that simple.
The 1,013 and 1,440 figures aren't directly like-for-like because the latter includes independent provision.
That's precisely why we need the detailed figures.
How many places do we actually have?
How many are occupied?
What type of SEND do they cater for?
Where are they?
How many additional places are definitely funded?
When will they open?
How many children are currently being sent elsewhere?
And how many children are effectively waiting for the system to catch up with them?
Those are the numbers that matter.
Ofsted was warning about this in 2023
This is where the investigation becomes particularly important.
Some of these problems weren't discovered last Tuesday.
In July 2023, Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission inspected Sandwell's local SEND partnership.
Inspectors recognised positive work and said children and young people with SEND were valued in Sandwell.
That should be acknowledged.
But they also identified some very significant weaknesses.
Parents reported that securing a special-school place could be a struggle. Inspectors said there were children remaining in mainstream schools on reduced timetables, or attending alternative provision for long periods, while waiting for a special-school place.
Think about the human meaning behind that bureaucratic language.
A child doesn't stop needing an education because the appropriate school place isn't ready yet.
A parent doesn't suddenly acquire another six hours in the day because their child is only attending school part-time.
And teachers in mainstream schools cannot magically manufacture specialist facilities, expertise and staffing from the contents of the stationery cupboard.
The inspectors also noted reliance on provision outside Sandwell.
So the question isn't simply:
"What is the council doing now?"
It's also:
"What did Sandwell know in 2023, what did it promise to do about it, what was actually delivered, and why are some of the same problems still appearing in council strategies three years later?"
The EHCP figures are worrying
Then we come to Education, Health and Care Plans themselves.
Sandwell's 2025/26 corporate performance figures show only 24.64% of EHCPs were completed within 20 weeks across the year.
By Quarter 4, that figure had fallen to just 12.52%.
The reported annual average assessment time was 46.42 weeks, compared with the 20-week measure.
Nationally, 46.1% of new EHC plans issued during 2025 were completed within the 20-week statutory timeframe, excluding applicable exceptions.
So this isn't something we should shrug at and say:
"Well, SEND is difficult everywhere."
It is difficult everywhere.
But the question is still whether Sandwell's performance is good enough.
If a child needs specialist support, 46 weeks is an enormous chunk of their school year.
For a five-year-old, it's a substantial portion of their entire life.
And rather than simply shouting "EHCP backlog", I want to know where the delay actually occurs.
Is it educational psychology?
Health assessments?
Social-care information?
School reports?
Decision panels?
Placement consultations?
Plan drafting?
Staffing?
Administration?
Because until we know where those weeks are disappearing, we aren't actually diagnosing the problem.
We're just counting it.
Then there's an extraordinary discrepancy in Sandwell's own figures
Here's something else that caught my eye.
On 21 July 2026, Sandwell Council said there were 4,064 children and young people with EHCPs.
The following day, in another council announcement about more than £2.5 million of SEND investment, the council gave a figure of 5,156 EHCPs.
That's a difference of 1,092.
I am not suggesting anything sinister here.
There may be a perfectly mundane explanation – perhaps different reporting dates, age cohorts or definitions.
But when you're planning schools, transport, staffing and services for thousands of vulnerable children, you'd hope everybody was at least using the same calculator.
So I've marked that figure as unresolved in my investigation rather than cherry-picking whichever one looks more dramatic.
The council should simply explain the difference.
Credit where it's due – investment is happening
It would be wrong to write this as though Sandwell is doing absolutely nothing.
It isn't.
The council approved a new SEND Sufficiency Strategy in July and has announced more than £2.5 million of investment, including work at Grace Mary Primary School, King George V Primary School and studies into creating further specialist SEND places.
That's welcome.
If it creates appropriate local places for children who would otherwise travel miles each day, even better.
But here's the important distinction:
announcing money is not the same as creating capacity.
Some of that funding relates to studies and preparatory work.
So for every announcement I think residents should be able to see:
How many additional SEND places does it create?
What needs will they support?
When will they open?
How many staff will be required?
Is the ongoing revenue funding secured?
And how many children currently travelling outside Sandwell will eventually be able to attend closer to home?
That's how we measure success.
Not by counting press releases.
Transport is part of the same problem
SEND transport is another area I'm going to investigate closely.
Because these issues feed directly into one another.
If Sandwell doesn't have the appropriate provision locally, children travel further.
When children travel further, transport becomes more complicated.
More complicated transport costs more money.
Longer journeys can place additional strain on children.
And families can find schools and services increasingly distant from their own communities.
Sandwell's SEND home-to-school transport expenditure was around £18 million in 2024/25, according to council scrutiny material.
Council evidence has also said that out-of-borough arrangements can, on average, be around 25% more expensive when provision and transport are considered together.
This is therefore about both children's wellbeing and taxpayers' money.
There is another question worth examining.
In its 2023 report, Ofsted recorded a partnership commitment that children and young people should not have to travel for more than 50 minutes to reach education or training.
The council's later transport policy uses different journey-time expectations, including up to 75 minutes each way for secondary pupils.
If those policies or commitments have changed, fine.
Explain why.
Because 75 minutes there and 75 minutes back can mean a child spending two and a half hours every school day travelling.
For some SEND children, that isn't just inconvenient.
It can be exhausting, distressing or extremely difficult to manage.
The investigation therefore needs actual journey-time data – not just a pleasant-looking average.
How many children travel more than 45 minutes?
More than 50?
More than an hour?
More than 75 minutes?
What's the longest journey?
How many require passenger assistants?
How many journeys are late, cancelled or changed?
How many appeals and complaints are being made?
One Sandwell school-transport case was upheld by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in September 2024 after faults were found in the council's handling of transport and the appeal. That one case does not prove systemic failure – but it does show why processes deserve examination.
SEND isn't only about school
There's another aspect which I worry gets forgotten whenever politicians talk about SEND.
Children don't cease being disabled when the school bell rings.
Families need:
activities, clubs, respite, short breaks, holiday provision and opportunities to socialise.
And Ofsted/CQC were quite clear about this in 2023.
They found there was not enough short-break capacity in Sandwell.
Summer holiday schemes could fill quickly on a first-come-first-served basis, leaving some children with nothing.
The range was particularly limited for children with complex needs and post-16 young people, with inspectors saying this contributed to some families feeling isolated.
That's significant.
Sandwell subsequently included commitments in its 2023–2026 Inclusion Plan to analyse waiting lists and unmet need and to improve the range of universal, targeted and specialist short-break opportunities.
So now, in 2026, we need to ask:
Did that happen?
Not:
"Is there a webpage listing some clubs?"
There is.
That's not the same thing.
We need to know capacity versus demand.
How many children need places?
How many get them?
How many are waiting?
How long?
What's available during school holidays?
What exists for children requiring 1:1 or 2:1 support?
What happens after they turn 16?
What respite exists for exhausted parents and carers?
And is provision reasonably available across all six towns of Sandwell, or does geography determine your chances?
Health has to be part of the investigation too
Ofsted and CQC specifically called for stronger working between education, health and social care so that children's needs could be identified and assessed more efficiently and promptly.
So I don't intend looking at this solely as a council education issue.
We need to consider:
community paediatrics;
speech and language therapy;
occupational therapy;
physiotherapy;
autism and ADHD assessment pathways;
mental-health support where applicable;
and the time taken for health professionals to provide statutory advice during EHCP assessments.
You cannot have an effective Education, Health and Care Plan system if one of those three words is operating on another planet.
And then there is the money
There is clearly a huge financial challenge here.
But there is also a danger of looking at SEND expenditure in separate little departmental boxes.
A shortage of local specialist places can mean expensive independent placements.
Those placements may be outside Sandwell.
That then generates additional transport costs.
Meanwhile pressure on the High Needs budget increases.
Which can reduce the money available to invest in local capacity.
Round and round we go.
It can become the municipal equivalent of paying £5 every day to avoid buying something for £50.
Sometimes external placements are absolutely the right option for an individual child.
The investigation must never start from the assumption that every child should be hauled back across the Sandwell boundary simply to save money.
The right placement must come first.
But where appropriate provision could be delivered locally, there are obvious educational, social and financial reasons for doing so.
This isn't going to become a party-political blame game
There's something else worth making clear.
Some of the problems identified here significantly predate the current Reform administration which took control of Sandwell Council in May 2026.
The Ofsted/CQC findings date from 2023.
The Inclusion Plan was produced under the previous Labour administration.
So it would be ridiculous to pretend everything currently wrong with SEND suddenly materialised after the May elections.
It didn't.
But equally, the new administration now owns the responsibility for what happens next.
You don't get to inherit the council chamber without inheriting the filing cabinets.
The present leadership should therefore be judged on whether it gets to grips with the problem, publishes meaningful information, listens to families and accelerates the provision Sandwell clearly needs.
Where it succeeds, I'll say so.
Where it doesn't, I'll say that too.
That's what being a critical friend is supposed to mean.
I've now started a Sandwell SEND Master Investigation
I've created a Sandwell SEND Master Foundation Document so this doesn't become another issue where important pieces of evidence vanish down assorted Facebook threads, committee papers and council webpages.
The investigation will track:
- growth in SEND and EHCP demand;
- EHCP waiting times and delays;
- special-school and resource-base capacity;
- out-of-borough placements;
- children on reduced timetables;
- alternative provision;
- SEND school transport;
- journey times;
- short breaks and respite;
- activities and holiday provision;
- post-16 provision;
- health and therapy capacity;
- High Needs funding;
- council capital investment;
- Ofsted/CQC recommendations;
- and, most importantly, promise versus delivery.
I will also be looking for information from parents, carers, teachers, support staff, SEND professionals and young people themselves.
Because statistics can tell us how many.
They don't always tell us what it feels like.
What I want Sandwell to demonstrate
I don't want another glossy strategy telling me that everybody is committed to "working together", "putting children at the heart of services" and "delivering positive outcomes".
Those phrases have been polished so often in local government they're probably visible from space.
Show us the numbers.
Show us the places.
Show us the waiting lists.
Show us the journey times.
Show us the short-break capacity.
Show us what was promised after the 2023 inspection.
Show us what was completed.
Show us what wasn't.
And if something failed – tell us why.
That's transparency.
Because behind every spreadsheet cell is a child
This is ultimately what matters.
An EHCP delayed for months isn't merely a red performance indicator.
It's a child potentially waiting for support.
A shortage of specialist places isn't merely an estates problem.
It's a family wondering where their child will be educated.
A 70-minute transport journey isn't merely a route optimisation exercise.
It's a child sitting in a vehicle before and after an already demanding school day.
A full holiday scheme isn't simply "100% utilisation".
It may mean an exhausted parent being told there is no respite place available.
That's why this deserves much more scrutiny.
And it will get it.
The SEND pressures facing Sandwell are substantial, they're growing, and much of this was foreseeable.
The question now is whether Sandwell's provision is growing quickly enough to meet them.
Based on what I've seen so far, there are some encouraging signs of investment.
There are also some very large warning lights flashing on the dashboard.
And I'm going to keep looking.
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